Omid Memarian

Thursday, November 10, 2005

Little by little pressure on the media by the new government is increasing. Most of the independent papers and magazines have been shut down by the government before. The media atmosphere now is on the wait and sees position. Journalists and social activists are waiting for the new gesture of the intelligence service about print media. But there is not any optimistic perspective. Some of the journalists have changed the sections they used to cover. Some of them have changed their job and now they prefer to wait for the future. The future that seems now is becoming more unpredictable.

Sunday, November 06, 2005

here is a funny clip about EU3 talk with Iran about the Nuclear energy. Really funny.

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

The president of under 18 years old poeple

Just eight years ago, the president of Iran Mohammad Khatami, talked about “dialogue among civilizations,” echoing the name the UN put on the year 2001. Now the new president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad talks about wiping Israel off the map. That’s just one sign that Iranian society is complicated. The Western media gives a lot of coverage to burning American flags in the streets of Tehran during Friday prayer ceremonies; no wonder so many foreigners are worried about the future direction of Iran They all have many questions which basically turn on “is Iran turning into a fundamentalist state”?

I’m not sure. The changes in Iran during the last few years show an active and dynamic society which leans more strongly democratic than anything else. The picture shown by the government’s propaganda machine doesn’t reflect the whole society. Many Iranians are surprised by what Ahmadinejad has said and many of them think he’s governing the country like a complete amateur. The new president apparently can’t separate the domestic slogans aimed at a tiny group of his supportrs from the message geared to the international community “He must be the president of the kids under 18. What he says is just for students of that age” says the great Iranian writer Ebrahim Nabavi.

Much of what Israel is doing in Palestine is wrong and I think somebody must persuade them to stop. But that’s not what the new president is doing. Instead, he’s destroying all the goodwill that Khatami built up in the international community over the last few years.

What Ahmadinejad said is one of the worst public statements by any Iranian official since the beginning of the revolution and the hostage crisis. It’s less a statement than an order to attack. It could create huge problem for the country.